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Eating Down the Fridge, One Week at a Time
November 30th, 2009 4 Comments
From our friends at Meatless Monday:The holidays, particularly Thanksgiving, are often a time of gluttony and overindulgence. This Monday, give your belly a break following last Thursday’s gorge. Take the next week off from grocery shopping to challenge your household to eat from ingredients already in your pantry, refrigerator and freezer. Instead of feeling pressure to finish your Thanksgiving leftovers before your next shopping trip, freeze some, portion the rest and cook innovative meals that don’t require a trip to the store. Some call this an exercise in frugality and culinary creativity. We call it the Eating Down the Fridge Challenge.
In February of 2009, True/Slant blogger and Meatless Monday advocate Kim O’Donnel read that eGullet.com was challenging its readers to go a week without shopping. eGullet’s Stephen Shaw estimated that anyone participating in the challenge once every quarter could save 8-10% on yearly grocery bills. This reminded O’Donnel’s editor that her own father’s Great Depression upbringing motivated him to freeze anything edible and then regularly rifle through the freezer to eat all the mysterious leftovers he had been hoarding away. And with that, the Eating Down the Fridge challenge was born.
With the economic recession in full swing, O’Donnel’s readers jumped at the chance to mobilize for such a conservation
effort. Over 100 households in the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark and South Africa volunteered to participate in the initial challenge. Kim selected households to write guest blog spots about their own adventures in reinventing meals with the ingredients they had on hand. Most participants reported back positively that their experiences expanded their meal creativity and left them with heavier wallets.But one thing we don’t need expanded this holiday season is our waistlines, so ration out your leftovers and challenge yourself to go without shopping the week after the festivities. Freezing part of your holiday leftovers takes the pressure off to finish fast and keeps nutrients intact far better than leaving them in the fridge. This week’s recipes consist of everyday ingredients from your post-Thanksgiving pantry, so let the Eating Down the Fridge Challenge push you beyond the traditional leftover meals. Most importantly the challenge encourages anyone participating to be more mindful of portion control, so engage the whole family in this Eating Down the Fridge adventure and be thankful for all the things you already have.
Tags: eating down the fridge kim o'donnel meatless monday
4 Responses to “Eating Down the Fridge, One Week at a Time”
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Sally Buttshaw December 6th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Actually, we eat like this all the time. My husband and I are on somewhat fixed food budgets being on social security and retired from regular full time work, I have always had a bad habit of making too much for dinner, it is hard to cook for 2 people ! so I freeze my leftovers in plastic bags and the containers for cottage cheese, sour cream, yogurt etc., then when it is time to plan the weeks meals i just check my list of leftovers. very easy, and a break for the cook (me) too !
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Freezing leftovers is such a great idea! They last so much longer… and you don’t find strange things hiding in your fridge way past their date.
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Havent been grocery shopping since before Thanksgiving!! I am using my meats and summer veges from canning and freezing. I get dairy and other at my local market if I need it.
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This is a regular way of life for us. L/O from the night before become lunchs for my husband and I to take to work. and once every 6 weeks or so we go without shopping for a few days and clean out the fridge. You get good at “cooking by the seat of your pants” soup, frittata, stir fry, jambalya. You have to have good basic in your pantry though. I also make a point of cleaning out the freezer every 3 or 4 months, anything no longer prime for humans (too freezery tasting) goes into “dog food soup” to add to the regular kibble – nothing goes to waste and Moose and Zoey are happy, well fed dogs!
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